Humpty Dumpty has fallen off a wall and is dead. Nursery Crimes Division officer Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary, investigate.

The plot goes something like this. A woodcutter finds a goose who lays golden eggs. Tom Thomm, the piper’s son, murders the woodcutter and steals the goose. He’s in cahoots with Humpty and Lord Randolph Spongg, the owner of a large foot care company on the verge of bankruptcy. Humpty has gotten hold of a foot infection that he plans on spreading all over the world. Spongg will then sell the cure and reap a vast profit, making himself and Humpty rich.

Jack and Mary travel down several roads, investigating several people who they thought were guilty. As it turns out, these people all thought they were guilty too, as each of them tried in one way or another to kill the egg.

But in the end, Jack figures out that Humpty wasn’t killed exactly. He was hatched. The Evil Dr. Quatt fertilized him with an injection of dinosaur DNA, and when Humpty’s shell hatched, a dinosaur hatched out. This dinosaur was trained to kill the Jellyman, but Jack prevented this by cleverly cutting down a giant beanstalk which fell on the dinosaur and Quatt.

Complicated, and rather gruesome for the type of book it was. The plot itself was pretty lame, but the characters and the frequent allusions to nursery rhymes were fun. It kept me reading with interest.